Watchdogs Warned of Chemical-Plant Oversight Before Blast

Firefighters conduct a search and rescue of an apartment destroyed by the explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas on April 18, 2013. Photographer: LM Otero/AP Photo

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- In the months before last week’s
deadly fertilizer-plant explosion in Texas, U.S. government
watchdogs criticized federal oversight of facilities that make
or store dangerous chemicals.

Agencies from the Department of Homeland Security to the
U.S. Chemical Safety Board were faulted for taking too long to
act or failing to persuade regulators to impose stricter safety
rules.

The deficiencies are gaining fresh scrutiny after the April
17 explosion at the Adair Grain Inc. fertilizer facility in
West, Texas, that killed 14 people. State and federal
investigators are seeking the cause of the blast, in which 10
firefighters and emergency personnel were among the fatalities.

“The fact that a community and a nation lost 14 people in
an explosion that leveled buildings so close to this plant tells
us something went very wrong,” Representative Paul Tonko of New
York, top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce’s
subcommittee on environment and economy, said in an e-mail.
“Clearly the state and federal government should have been
doing much more to prevent an accident of this magnitude.”

The U.S. has about 90 facilities -- including chemical
factories, refineries, water treatment plants and fertilizer
depots -- that in a worst-case scenario would pose risks to more
than 1 million people, according to a Congressional Research
Service report in November that analyzed reports submitted by
companies to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Regulatory Failings

About 400 other facilities could pose risks to more than
100,000 people, according to the report. The calculations were
based on the proximity of each plant to a population center as
well as a “worst-case release scenario” -- such as an
explosion or leak -- that facility owners are required to report
to the EPA.

Federal watchdogs in reports and testimony laid out a
series of agency failings: The Department of Homeland Security,
which aims to protect chemical plants from terrorist attack, may
take more than seven years to review security plans of 3,120
facilities; the EPA’s inspectors of chemical facilities lacked
proper training; and the Chemical Safety Board failed to get
many safety recommendations implemented, with 25 percent
languishing for five years or more.

‘Painful Process’

Tonko’s panel held an oversight hearing on Homeland
Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program,
or CFATS, on March 14 at which the Congressional Research
Service released a report showing gaps in anti-terrorism
efforts. There’s no indication the West explosion is related to
terrorism.

“Sadly, it has been a very painful process to see how
badly CFATS had fallen short of our expectations and to see the
struggle, both inside DHS as well as externally, to get the
program back on track,” Representative John Shimkus, an
Illinois Republican and committee chairman, said in a statement
then. “In key areas the suggested progress is not what we had
hoped.”

The EPA doesn’t collect information about ammonium nitrate,
the chemical stored at the Texas plant. The West, Texas,
facility was approved by state regulators to store 270 tons of
ammonium nitrate, according to records. Adair didn’t tell U.S.
agencies how much ammonium nitrate was on site.

McVeigh Attack

The highly explosive chemical is responsible for some of
the deadliest industrial accidents and terrorist attacks.
Timothy McVeigh used it in 1995 to destroy Oklahoma City’s
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people. The Irish
Republican Army used it to attack London’s Canary Wharf in 1996.

Daniel Keeney, a spokesman for Adair, declined to comment.
Donald Adair, the company’s owner, in a statement issued April
19, said, “We pledge to do everything we can to understand what
happened to ensure nothing like this ever happens again in any
community.”

The explosion at the Adair plant blew through a 3-foot
concrete foundation and left a crater 93 feet by 10 feet,
Special Agent Robert Champion of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms told reporters today. The explosion, which
damaged structures in a 37-block area, leveled two large
buildings on the site and cut off the top of a corn silo,
according to pool reporters on site. Wreckage could be seen in a
field, about 150 yards east of the plant.

Engineers, Chemists

About 70 investigators including engineers and chemists
from state and federal agencies are poring over the scene.
They’ve interviewed 60 to 70 witnesses, including passersby and
emergency crews.

Since a chemical leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984 that killed
about 3,800 people, environmental groups, unions and safety
groups have pushed the U.S. to tighten oversight of chemical
production and storage facilities. While they pressed for the
proposals after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York,
legislation never passed in Congress.

Instead, a patchwork of programs operates under separate
departments, each with its own objectives, congressional
oversight and constraints.

The Department of Homeland Security’s chemical security
program drew increased congressional scrutiny after an internal
memo detailing problems with the program surfaced in 2011,
according to Stephen Caldwell, a director who oversees the
agency for the Government Accountability Office. At the current
pace, it could take years to review all the plans and conduct
needed inspections, Caldwell said at the March congressional
hearing, according to his written testimony.

Hearing Testimony

DHS has already sped up reviews and “recognizes the need
to increase the pace of authorization and approvals and is
examining potential approaches for increasing the pace,” Rand
Beers, undersecretary of Homeland Security, testified at the
hearing.

For the EPA, its inspector general found many inspectors
and supervisors lack minimum training requirements.

“As noted in the IG report, EPA started addressing program
improvement several years ago beginning in 2010 and continuing
to the present with steps to make changes to better our”
chemical inspection program, Alisha Johnson, an EPA spokeswoman,
said in an e-mail.

Safety Board

The Chemical Safety Board, a five-member investigating body
that lacks the power to impose rules, “did not consistently
achieve its goals and standards, as outlined in its current
strategic plan, for timely implementation of its safety
recommendations,” its inspector general said in an August
review. In a letter of response, Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso
said the independent agency is adopting measures to better
advocate for adoption of its recommendations by industry, labor
unions and government agencies.

Safety advocates say deficiencies uncovered at the
departments show the need for legislation to tighten rules.

“You have to reduce the consequence of an attack on your
facility,” Rick Hind, legislative director for Greenpeace, said
in an interview. “If you can’t prevent an accident, prevent the
catastrophic consequence of an accident.”

Measures previously considered would have forced companies
to abandon the most-dangerous chemicals, or prodded them into
using less of those chemicals and adopting safeguards to ensure
that they couldn’t cause a catastrophe.

“What will be important is the investigation” in West,
Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council,
which represents companies such as 3M Co. and BP Plc., said in
an interview. “It’s early to figure out what steps need to be
taken. We need to be sure the legislation in place is being
implemented properly.”